Amtrak to FRA: Lightweight HSR trains, please

Why does it have to be either / or? Why not both avoidance and survivability?

Is avoidance so good that survivability is not necessary?

With the PTC system being implemented I don't see why the FRA wouldn't give the OK. A good example of a lighter, yet durable, train is the Virgin Trains Pendolino EMU. The Garyrigg derailment several years back proved just how strong this train really is. And keep mind that it was traveling at about 90mph when it derailed and tumbled down the embankment.

Brief quote from above-linked per railroad.net guidelines:

Amtrak begins the new year by formally planning to request revisions to Federal Railroad Administration safety standards to facilitate lighter-weight high speed rail equipment, a move U.S. rail advocates have sought for at least two decades.

Amtrak seeks the adjustment to better plan for new HSR equipment to replace the heavier Acela Express gear now traversing the Northeast Corridor, according to Amtrak President and CEO Joseph Boardman.

U.S. crashworthiness standards currently include reliance on heavier rail equipment compared with European or Asian counterparts, which lower top speed potential and energy efficiency. The U.S. approach is weighted toward crash survivability, as opposed to simply crash avoidance, as in other locales.

From this blurb it seems to be tied in to replacing the Acela fleet, but I think the topic is worthy to stand on its own:

Bloomberg

Amtrak Seeks Safety Changes to Allow U.S. Bullet Trains

...

Existing standards apply to trains traveling as much as 150 miles per hour (241 kilometers per hour). Writing new rules that relax railcar structural-strength requirements for faster trains “would allow for less use of fuel, quicker acceleration, a different performance profile,” Boardman, 64, said. “What we’re really looking for is a performance specification here.”

...

Safety standards for passenger trains operating at more than 150 mph are being developed, Kevin Thompson, a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration, said in an e-mail. Amtrak is “working with FRA and other members of the Railroad Safety Advisory Council to better define the car strength criteria for higher-speed passenger equipment,” he said.
Amtrak’s long-term plan for high-speed service in the Northeast envisions those trains running on dedicated tracks.

...

It was my understanding that rather than relaxing survivability requirements and replacing them with avoidance mechanisms, these standards would replace the early 20th century "buff strength" standards with modern "crash energy management" standards which might actually yield both ligher and safer trains.

An analogy:

Accident survivability in cars from the 1950s basically consisted of making the cars as heavy and stiff as possible so that in the event of a wreck the car would not deform and would basically plow through whatever it ran into. This approach is not really that effective.

In modern days, things like crumple zones and air bags slow down the impact so that the car is slowed down more gradually and the full force of the impact is not absorbed by all passengers all at once.

Likewise, my rudimentary understanding of current "buff strength" requirements are that they stipulate that the lead car must weigh at least a certain amount, and that it must be able to withstand a certain severity of impact without deforming at all. Under a modern "crash energy management" regime, trains would be designed to include crumple zones to turn a severe impact into a more gradual one.

Video of Crash Energy Management technology:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUpUJrk4QBE

orulz wrote:An analogy:

Accident survivability in cars from the 1950s basically consisted of making the cars as heavy and stiff as possible so that in the event of a wreck the car would not deform and would basically plow through whatever it ran into. This approach is not really that effective.

You analogy is entirely incorrect. The reality is that there wasn't any systematic or scientific crash testing of automobiles before Mercedes-Benz started the practice in 1959, and it wasn't until 1967 that there were meaningful passenger car safety standards in North America.

The reality was that before Mercedes in 1959, no manufacturer really knew how a car would perform "in the event of wreck," and Mercedes engineers were so astonished by their own first crash test that they cancelled a car that was nearly ready for production.

So, there was no presumption that a "car would not deform and would basically plow through whatever it ran into." That was never a design objective. Safety wasn't a major design objective, hence the unpredictable result of the first North American crash tests in the 1960s.

orulz wrote:In modern days, things like crumple zones and air bags slow down the impact so that the car is slowed down more gradually and the full force of the impact is not absorbed by all passengers all at once.

Actually, airbags exist to make sure that the occupants don't suffer fatal injuries from coming into contact with the various parts of the interior of the car, such as the steering column, roof pillars and dash. Crumple zones do mitigate the sudden impact forces, but interior airbags aren't that simple.

orulz wrote:Likewise, my rudimentary understanding of current "buff strength" requirements are that they stipulate that the lead car must weigh at least a certain amount, and that it must be able to withstand a certain severity of impact without deforming at all. Under a modern "crash energy management" regime, trains would be designed to include crumple zones to turn a severe impact into a more gradual one.

The notion of a "crumple zone" already exists in FRA standards to the extent that you find unoccupied vestibules on either end of the Acela and are likely to see unoccupied end on all future rolling stock.

how much freight runs on the nec , and is seperate hours of operation an option .
I would think seperate rules for the nec ( or any other advanced signalling , low freight traffic line ) would be suitable .
I wonder what an off the shelf european hsr cost ?

goodnightjohnwayne wrote: You analogy is entirely incorrect. The reality is that there wasn't any systematic or scientific crash testing of automobiles before Mercedes-Benz started the practice in 1959...

If you're going to quote 'reality', at least do a five minute fact check on Google beforehand.

From:
http://www.motorwayamerica.com/content/ ... -first-car

During the 1950s the Daimler-Benz engineers watched closely to see how crash testing established itself as a new instrument of research and development in the United States. Visits to American universities and car manufacturers provided the experts from Stuttgart with inspiration and ideas for their own component testing and crash tests.

One such visit was made by Karl Wilfert, Rudolf Uhlenhaut and Fritz Nallinger to Ford’s crash testing facility in Dearborn in 1955. The men from Stuttgart were surprised to discover that Ford was already using accident research for aggressive marketing purposes at that time. This would soon influence the way Mercedes-Benz dealt with the sensitive issue of vehicle safety.

Crash testing was well on it's way to being an established science by the end of the 50's. The value of even crude seat belts was known by then - the now universal 3 point seatbelt was developed in the late 50's. That didn't happen by guessing, it was the result of crash testing.

korax wrote:http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/pas ... channel=41

FRA to Amtrak: Ha, ha, ha.

The current crash regs are indeed the result of bureaucracy rather than science, after all. They extend beyond the Acela Express (albeit in lesser degree) to all new-build passenger trains.

goodnightjohnwayne wrote:You analogy is entirely incorrect. The reality is that there wasn't any systematic or scientific crash testing of automobiles before Mercedes-Benz started the practice in 1959, and it wasn't until 1967 that there were meaningful passenger car safety standards in North America.

The reality was that before Mercedes in 1959, no manufacturer really knew how a car would perform "in the event of wreck," and Mercedes engineers were so astonished by their own first crash test that they cancelled a car that was nearly ready for production.

So, there was no presumption that a "car would not deform and would basically plow through whatever it ran into." That was never a design objective. Safety wasn't a major design objective, hence the unpredictable result of the first North American crash tests in the 1960s.

Point taken, but I wasn't necessarily talking about a scientific approach to safety. Even if there was nothing scientific behind it, manufacturers built vehicles like tanks in order to create an image of safety and to use it in promoting their vehicles.

The physics behind it is somewhat sound; a heavier object colliding with a lighter object will decelerate less and therefore the forces experienced by the occupants will be less. This didn't necessarily prevent injuries since the forces were still pretty extreme.

To me this is a closer analogy to what the FRA has been doing up until now than you gave me credit for, but I'll certainly allow it is still not very good, but can you come up with a better one?

quoted by Jeff Smith wrote:.... The U.S. [crashworthiness] approach is weighted toward crash survivability, as opposed to simply crash avoidance, as in other locales.

(I'm assuming "other locales" means basically "Western Europe", and not places like India.)

There's a pretty obvious difference between Western European railroads and US railroads. W. European railroads are primarily passenger railroads; freight operations have to do whatever is necessary to not impact passenger operations. In the USA, it's the other way around. US railroads are freight operations with the occasional passenger nuisance^H^H^H^H^H^Htrain, and they are happy to tolerate a collision/derailment/etc. rate that is much higher than would be acceptable for passenger operations. They'd probably tolerate an even higher rate if it weren't for the FRA and Congress breathing down their necks -- viz. drug testing and now the PTC requirements.

The FRA is evidently assuming that, despite the FRA's best efforts, there are going to be collisions between passenger trains and incredibly massive freight trains, as well as derailments, and all the other ways that US trains crash into things. Until systems are in place to prevent them, and those systems actually demonstrate that accidents aren't happening any more, I think the FRA is doing the right thing.

To be fair a high speed trainset captive to the NEC would eliminate most of the problems with grade crossing accidents, freight trains and high speed derailments due to track issues. I can't even remember the last time Amtrak had a major wreck on the NEC. Therefore I would gladly accept a lower level of crash robustness for train sets operating on the NEC, which would probably result in something that is as good as an Amfleet or Heritage car as those were made before Bombardier lobbied for the present regulations so they could win the Acela contract.

Out on the open network however the least coast avoider for accidents is still the railcar itself. People complain about the unnecessary expense of North American rolling stock, but when the European stuff requires a sealed right of way such complaints are pound foolish.

Jersey_Mike wrote:To be fair a high speed trainset captive to the NEC would eliminate most of the problems with grade crossing accidents, ...

You'd have to define the NEC to not include NYP to BOS, or anything south/west of Washington. I'm not sure what grade crossings there are between PHL and Washington.

Jersey_Mike wrote:I can't even remember the last time Amtrak had a major wreck on the NEC.

You don't remember the wreck of the Colonial? I'm sure that neither the Amtrak brass nor the FRA will forget it any time soon.